Windows 12 May Require a Subscription

Billiam@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 930 points –
Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
pcmag.com

[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a "Subscription Edition," "Subscription Type," and a "subscription status."

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I mean, how the hell wouldn't it? What's more surprising to me is that they didn't do this with 11. Everyone is totally used to this model at this point and while we all hate it, it's become the accepted way of living for most tech products now. If you are a big corporation and can get away with making customers rent your product instead of buy it, you are going to make so much more money. Of course they will choose this.

They need to bring ads in at 11

Then use 12 for ad-free subscription

Then both sides are justified by virtue of the other existing

There's a limit to how willing consumers are to continue adding new subscriptions. We're seeing this happen right now in the car industry. Subscription is only a proven model in content delivery systems, and even those are slowly starting to fail. I think that the average consumer would be very resistant to pay monthly for an operating system. Most people barely even understand what an operating system is. There's no way places like the EU will allow this either.

What are they going to do? Learn Linux?!? /LAUGHS in a big board room. Laughter is echoed by middle aged white men in room.

They will pay.

No, people just won't upgrade. For the average person there's almost no reason to upgrade anyway.

I dunno. I heard they are shifting the start button to the right side of the screen in 12 and there will be a bing widget that recommends when to wear long underwear based on local weather forecasts. Not sure the masses can resist these upgrades.

What's laughable is how quickly they're abandoning Windows 11

Eh? 11 has been out for what, 2-3 years now? And it'll likely be supported for another 5-8, easily. This article is talking about a beta version of 12, which means it'll likely be another 2 years before public release. Most enterprise settings won't even bother with 12 until at least a couple years after it's launched.